Open Source Library

One of the most important open source tools in our stack isn’t flashy - but it quietly keeps everything else running.

🟢 𝗨̲𝗽̲𝘁̲𝗶̲𝗺̲𝗲̲ 𝗞̲𝘂̲𝗺̲𝗮̲ is our internal watchdog. Since 2022, it’s been monitoring every client system and internal service we run.

What it does

Uptime Kuma is a self-hosted monitoring tool that regularly pings your servers, services, APIs, and websites. If something goes down - you’ll know.

We’ve connected it to Slack via webhooks, so any outage immediately triggers an alert in our internal channels. It’s simple, fast, and incredibly reliable.

Paid alternatives

- UptimeRobot
- BetterUptime
- Pingdom
- StatusCake
- Freshping

Monthly savings

Compared to premium monitoring plans across multiple services, we save roughly €50–€100/month — and we gain full control over how, when, and what gets monitored.

Why we love it

Uptime Kuma has become mission-critical software for us. Without it, we’d be flying blind. It gives us confidence in our infrastructure and lets us react to issues faster than clients can email us — which is exactly how it should be.

Would we recommend it?

Absolutely ✅
If you’re managing production systems, client infrastructure, or even internal tools — this should be the first OSS you roll out. We genuinely couldn’t live without it.

Your code is your IP — and in our view, that means it doesn’t belong in someone else’s cloud.That’s why we’ve been using 𝗚𝗼𝗴𝘀 since 2023 to host all of our codebases — securely, privately, and under our full control.

What it does

Gogs is a self-hosted Git service that offers a lightweight, fast, and easy-to-use alternative to platforms like GitHub or Bitbucket.It supports repositories, issue tracking, webhooks, and collaboration tools — all behind your own firewall.We use it to host every internal and client project, and it’s connected to Slack to notify us of new commits, pushes, and pipeline events — or flag issues immediately.

Paid alternatives

- GitHub
- GitLab
- Bitbucket
- Azure DevOps

Monthly savings

Compared to hosted Git services with paid user tiers and storage costs, we save around €100–€200/month, depending on user count and repo size.

Why we love it

It’s fast, stable, and has zero external dependencies.Most importantly, it ensures we don’t ship our clients' intellectual property to a third party provider — a step we believe more agencies and product teams should consider.

Would we recommend it?

Yes ✅

Especially if you care about privacy, compliance, or control over critical assets.Gogs does everything we need it to — and we sleep better knowing exactly where our code lives.

Reusable code is one of the cornerstones of efficient software development.But when it comes to managing internal packages — most teams either rely on public registries or tie themselves to complex enterprise solutions.

At Iridium Works, we’ve been using 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗶𝗼 since 2022 as our private npm registry — and it’s made a huge difference.

What it does

Verdaccio is a lightweight, self-hosted npm registry that allows teams to publish and install their own packages — just like with npmjs.org, but fully under your control.We use it to manage our self-developed or imported code blocks that solve recurring problems across client projects.This means:

- We reduce dev effort by reusing proven solutions
- When we fix a bug in one shared package, we can update it across all projects instantly
- We don’t rely on third-party registries for sensitive or proprietary logic

Paid alternatives

- GitHub Packages
- npm Pro / npm Enterprise
- JFrog Artifactory
- Azure Artifacts

Monthly savings

Considering what enterprise-grade registries charge per user, per GB, and for retention, we estimate savings of €100–€300/month — with full control and no vendor dependency.

Why we love it

Verdaccio brings structure and security to our internal development.It helps our devs move faster, with less repetition and more confidence in shared components.And because it’s self-hosted, we stay in control of how and where our packages are stored and versioned.

Would we recommend it?

Depends ☑️

If you're managing internal modules or shared components across multiple projects, Verdaccio is a must-have. It scales beautifully and pays off from day one.If you do not have recurring projects and multiple developers, you will create a lot of overhead managing and keeping the registry up to date.

By 2025, every company needs a secure, centralized file storage system — and no, your desktop folder doesn’t count.At Iridium Works, we’ve been using 𝗢𝘄𝗻𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱 since 2021 to manage all internal and project-related files — without sending a single byte to a third-party cloud provider.

What it does

OwnCloud is a self-hosted file storage and collaboration platform — think Dropbox or Google Drive, but under your control.We use it as our company-wide digital file hub, with:

- Fine-grained permission management for teams and individuals
- Easy access to documents, contracts, designs, and more
- Access from anywhere
- Secure file sharing with clients when needed

Paid alternatives

- Google Workspace / Google Drive
- Microsoft OneDrive / SharePoint
- Dropbox Business
- Box

Monthly savings

Compared to cloud storage subscriptions with per-user pricing and data caps, we save around €100–€250/month, depending on user count and storage needs.

Why we love it

OwnCloud gives us full control over our business-critical data.No third-party analytics, no external file scanning, no opaque cloud terms — just a fast, stable, and secure file system hosted on our own infrastructure.

Would we recommend it?

Definitely ✅

Every business needs a digital file storage system in 2025 — and if you care about data protection and ownership, OwnCloud is the right call.

Let’s be honest — if your team still shares passwords over email or Slack, it’s not a question of if a security breach will happen, but when.

At Iridium Works, we’ve been using Passbolt since 2023 as our self-hosted password vault — and it’s become absolutely essential to our operations.

What it does

Passbolt is a self-hosted, open source password manager built specifically for teams.It lets you:

- Securely store and manage credentials
- Generate strong, unique passwords for every login
- Organize entries with group-based permission management
- Share access in a secure, auditable, and controlled way

Paid alternatives

- 1Password for Teams
- LastPass Business
- Dashlane
- Bitwarden Teams/Enterprise

Monthly savings

With per-user pricing avoided, we estimate €50–€150/month in savings — and we gain full control over where and how credentials are stored.

Why we love it

We don’t reuse passwords.We don’t lose passwords.And we don’t give third-party platforms access to our most sensitive credentials.Passbolt keeps our secrets safe, our team organized, and our clients protected.

Would we recommend it?

Absolutely ✅

For any business working with client systems, internal tools, or cloud platforms — this is a non-negotiable piece of software.We couldn’t operate without it.

If you send newsletters in 2025, you should think carefully about where your subscriber data lives.

At Iridium Works, we’ve been using 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗸 since early 2025 — both for our own updates and for running GDPR-compliant campaigns on behalf of our clients.

What it does

Listmonk is a self-hosted, open source newsletter and mailing list manager.It combines:

- A fast bulk email engine
- A modern UI for campaign and list management
- Detailed analytics, segmentation, and templatingIt’s lightweight, developer-friendly, and respects user privacy by default.

Paid alternatives

- Mailchimp
- Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
- MailerLite
- ActiveCampaign

Monthly savings

Depending on list size and email volume, we save between €50–€300/month compared to commercial platforms — all while hosting everything on our own infrastructure.

Why we love it

Listmonk gives us full control over subscriber data — meaning no exposure to third-party tracking, shadow profiling, or opaque data practices.It’s the right tool for privacy-first communications — and the emails go out fast, reliably, and without branding overlays.

One caveat

Listmonk isn’t designed for multi-tenancy. So for now, we spin up a separate instance for each client or internal use case. It’s a tradeoff we’re happy to make for the privacy it provides.

Would we recommend it?

Yes ✅

If GDPR compliance, control, and performance matter to your newsletter strategy — Listmonk is one of the best OSS tools out there.

Some tools should “just work.”

For us, calendar syncing across our company is one of them — and after years of frustration, we finally found a solution that does exactly that. Since 2025, Baikal has been our go-to open source tool for company-wide calendar sync — and it’s been running flawlessly ever since.

What it does

Baikal is a lightweight, self-hosted CalDAV and CardDAV server that enables seamless syncing of calendars and contacts across devices and clients. We use it to:

- Keep all team members’ calendars in sync
- Integrate with our existing mail setup
- Avoid the overhead, cost, and complexity of full-blown enterprise tools

Paid alternatives

- Microsoft Exchange
- Google Workspace
- iCloud for Business
- Zoho Calendar

Monthly savings

By replacing Exchange and ditching the headaches of third-party setups, we’re saving €150–€300/month — and even more if you count the time lost trying to configure things the “official” way.

Why we love it

After using Exchange for two years, we were shocked by how painful and expensive it was to maintain — even for something as “basic” as calendar sync. When we tried to move to Microsoft-hosted Exchange, the setup process was so broken and frustrating that we finally said: enough.

Enter Baikal:

✅ Easy to set up
✅ Integrates smoothly with our mail system
✅ Lightweight and problem-free

Would we recommend it?

Absolutely ✅

If you need a reliable calendar sync across your company and want to skip the enterprise bloat — Baikal is a clean, effective, and open alternative.

Observability isn’t just for servers anymore.

At Iridium Works, we use Grafana to monitor and analyze what’s going on inside our software — especially AI agents.

What it does

Grafana is an open source analytics and visualization platform.It connects to a wide range of data sources (like Prometheus, Loki, InfluxDB, and more) to help you monitor logs, metrics, and real-time data in customizable dashboards. For us, it solves two key problems:

- Monitoring system performance and behavior
- Logging intermediary results in complex processes — especially those involving AI

Paid alternatives

- Datadog
- New Relic
- Dynatrace
- Splunk

Monthly savings

When used self-hosted and focused on project-specific needs, we save around €100–€300/month/project compared to full-service observability platforms — without losing the insight we need.

Why we love it

Grafana really shines when you know exactly what you want to monitor.We use it in a targeted way — especially to track AI agent behavior step-by-step. By visualizing intermediary results between each stage of reasoning, we gain visibility into where hallucinations or logic breakdowns occur. It’s not just about uptime — it’s about understanding how your systems think.

Would we recommend it?

Yes ✅

especially for teams working with AI, automation, or complex systems. Grafana gives you the flexibility to define exactly what matters and monitor it — with clarity and control.

LLMs are powerful — but they come with a hidden cost: your data.

At Iridium Works, we’ve been using Ollama since 2025 to run Llama-based large language models locally, fully under our control — and fully in line with our data protection standards.

What it does

Ollama is a self-hosted platform for running open source LLMs like Llama, Mistral, or Gemma on your local hardware — with a simple CLI and API interface.

We use it to:

- Run language models locally, without internet access
- Process and analyze sensitive customer data securely
- Integrate LLMs into tools, workflows, and internal systems without compromising compliance

Paid alternatives

- OpenAI (ChatGPT)
- Anthropic (Claude)
- Google Gemini- xAI (Grok)
- ...

Monthly savings

Depending on usage volume, hosting your own models with Ollama is probably more expensive since you need powerful hardware to run them without performance problems — but for us, the real value is in privacy, not price.

Why we love it

If you're working with sensitive client information, using 3rd-party LLMs like ChatGPT or XAI introduces serious legal and ethical risks. These providers store and use your prompts to improve their models — often in ways that directly violate your data protection obligations. With Ollama, we can confidently build LLM powered tools without sacrificing trust or compliance.

Would we recommend it?

Partially ☑️

If you’re working in regulated environments, handling client data, or building LLM based workflows for customers you will need it. If you are using LLMs without using sensitive information or you can anonymize it, a third party LLM will do the job.

Building powerful AI workflows doesn’t have to start with code — and it definitely doesn’t have to rely on a SaaS black box.

At Iridium Works, we’ve been using Langflow since 2025 to visually create, test, and run AI agents — locally and securely.

What it does

Langflow is a visual builder for AI agents, based on LangChain. It lets you connect LLMs, tools, APIs, memory components, and logic steps into structured, no-code pipelines.We use it to:

- Build internal and client-facing AI agents
- Connect those agents to self-hosted LLMs via Ollama or other models- Integrate 3rd-party tools like Firecrawl to enhance their real-world capabilities (e.g. web scraping, search, APIs)

Paid alternatives

- Flowise
- Dust
- Relevance AI
- Zapier AI (for lightweight agent workflows)

Monthly savings

Compared to paid AI builder platforms with usage-based pricing and hosted runtime environments, we save an estimated €300/month, depending on agent complexity and usage.

Why we love it

Langflow brings transparency and flexibility to AI automation.We can rapidly prototype and deploy agents, all while keeping data local — whether we're using our own LLMs or connecting to external ones when needed. It’s perfect for teams who want to automate real business processes using AI — without losing control over data, execution, or integrations.

Would we recommend it?

Absolutely ✅

If you’re serious about using AI to automate tasks, enhance workflows, or augment user experiences, Langflow is an excellent starting point — especially when paired with self-hosted LLMs like Ollama.

Documentation is often an afterthought — until your team (or your users) actually need it.

At Iridium Works, we’ve been using Docusaurus since 2024 to build and maintain internal and external documentation at scale.

What it does

Docusaurus is a static site generator designed specifically for documentation websites.Built with React and Markdown, it’s fast, modern, and incredibly extendible. We use it to:

- Create internal web-based wikis for project collaboration
- Build structured user manuals for clients and team onboarding
- Organize knowledge in a way that’s clean, searchable, and easy to maintain

Paid alternatives

- Notion (for wikis)
- Confluence
- GitBook
- ReadMe

Monthly savings

For larger teams or hosted platforms, savings range from €50–€200/month — but more importantly, we gain control over structure, hosting, and access.

Why we love it

Docusaurus lets us treat documentation like we treat our code:Versioned. Modular. Reviewed via pull requests.And because it runs on a static site, it’s fast, secure, and easily deployed to any environment.

Would we recommend it?

For sure ✅

Especially for larger projects that require robust internal documentation or public-facing manuals.If your docs are starting to sprawl, Docusaurus helps you bring order — and style — to the chaos.